Criminal Justice Standards

About Criminal Justice Standards

For forty years, the ABA Criminal Justice Standards have guided policymakers and practitioners working in the criminal justice arena. When the initial volumes were issued in 1968, Chief Justice Warren Burger described the Standards project as "the single most comprehensive and probably the most monumental undertaking in the field of criminal justice ever attempted by the American legal profession in our national history." In the years since, several new volumes have been added to the original seventeen-volume First Edition, a Second Edition has been completed, and a Third Edition is well underway.

Initial responsibility for ensuring the Standards continue to be relevant, timely, and of the highest quality resides in the nine-member Standards Committee appointed by the ABA President upon recommendations submitted by the Chair of the Criminal Justice Section. The Standards Committee determines the priorities for updating or revising existing volumes and for developing or expanding volumes to address issues not already covered. It commissions and provides oversight to Task Forces in developing specific recommendations, and ensures thorough review by both ABA and non-ABA entities. It reviews, revises, and approves draft standards to be forwarded to the Criminal Justice Section Council and, ultimately, to the policymaking ABA House of Delegates. Following approval by the House, it oversees the preparation of and approves commentary to accompany the "black letter" standards and, finally, it ensures publication of the new volumes.

Click HEREfor an article on " The Making of the ABA Criminal Justice Standards" by Criminal Justice Standards Committee Chair Martin Marcus appearing in the Winter 2009 edition of the Section's Criminal Justice Magazine.

Links to the Table of Contents of each published volume appear in the right-hand column. Links on the Table of Contents pages take the reader to both individual “black letter” Standards and to PDF files of the publications with commentary. To purchase paperback publications with commentary, see the Standards Ordering Information.